time after time to welcome to this going underground special edition on the fight for the commons as the odds on favorite to become the next u.k. prime minister jeremy corbyn promises an immediate nationalization program we investigate the battle against and pleasure of the labor party advisor in a chronicle of a revolutionary struggle in the bow and we go to him on the stage britain won't cover the anti inequality fight a revolutionary so hope jacobin are just william blake the author of england's unofficial anthem jerusalem but before we speak historian putin about about his new book red round globe hot burning its title derived from william blake's poem visions of the daughters of albion we go to the tate britain where we began our

interview with curator martin maroney by asking him about that poem this is a big exhibition is over 300 words in the exhibition by plate his prints his drawings and also his illuminated books and with a series of books in the $79.00 to this revolutionary decade with the revolution in france and the fallout still of the loss of america in britain he created a series of us including visions of the daughters of albion europe prophecy america prophecy which are in the exhibition and which show him translating clint day events into these visionary terms using his inventive characters and representing the kind of great power struggles within europe he wants to work so hard on preparing an exhibition like this and be very aware of how both the left and the right of politics try to claim blake for their own many people know the last night of the proms the singing of jerusalem what is what emerges in this exhibition yet as his politics now at a late. during the fascinating figure and he has been claimed by it by the

political left by the political right by radicals by conservatives and everybody finds around blake on the one hand he was speaking fierce revolutionary sentiments in his poetry and his art he was against capitalism against materialism against many of the features of the modern world but he was doing so really with reference to quite a small circle of people who understood his art or were interested in who supported him and they were. what we call having a liberal metropolitan elite but i mean so tiger tiger isn't just a nursery where i meet any of blake's poems even a poem like tiger tiger is and can be interpreted in lots of ways sets up this idea of a ferocious creature the kind of embodied mint of raw nature at the design at the bottom that blake has printed on the page is looks like a domestic cat it's a sort of looking cat and you know either that means that they can't or cats very well could if you wanted to or there's something going on between text and images.

of being a revolutionary jacobin symbol yes we'll have this thing that interpretation which . are open to interpretation and certainly have been radical sentiments and there are radical radical symbolism and sentiments in place we're going to be talking later in the program about a friend of. the great british war hero. he's a radical william blake put the same term there's a painting of nelson here a picture of nelson here showing less sympathy for radicalism argument really can a key exhibit. section of the exhibition dealing with blake's one man show 1819 the key exhibits we've got here are allegorical paintings of admiral nelson and the prime minister pitt and they're both shown as figures guiding biblical monsters and bring chaos on the destruction of the world that's very true we know that blake was not a tory we know from voting records that he voted for the wake of the big opposition

and 74 when he had the chance and he wasn't a fan of war he was a great pacifist and his opponent of war so these pictures are very intriguing and quite complex and they seem to celebrate these national figures and what seems to be going on is that he's at presenting the idea of nelson war leader died in the political monster who's going to bring chaos and destruction out of that there will be some kind of spiritual rebirth and whether you know whether you see that as a positive thing or a negative thing i think really kind of depends on your perspective of the american evangelical right well i mean yes you can't exactly i think that i think there is that aspect to that of course the left of long celebrated william blake notably from their poem london. chartered what is blake's relationship with private property versus public well i mean blake has been long been a favorite figure amongst the liberal and left wing intelligentsia and they see in him powerful social commentary and they see in him

a commitment to spiritual values against materialism against capitalism but blake was also need to put bread on the table and i think it's a much more ambiguous and complex relationship with with with modern capitalism so yeah i mean blake comes out and he observes the poverty in the struggle which is going on in the world and in the. london around him and he complains about tyranny and king merchants and big business men and the damage that slavery child labor slavery and child labor and that that's that's that's all in there but the same time you know he put it on the table and the people that he worked for the people that he aligned himself with to some extent and we didn't work because he died in obscurity and no one really liked his work when he. came there he was he was a shadowy figure but there were moments in his career was actually quite celebrated but yeah on the margins but by no means a quite as obscure as the mythology would have us believe he became england's one of england's greatest artists writers renaissance men after his death what was the

need for leads to reclaim the maybe the great you know i think blake's posthumous reputation as a really fascinating story that in his life was a pretty obscure figure but the last 10 years best life he found new support with some younger artists. john varley younger man much more professionally successful who look to him as the archetype the model of the authentic artist and the environment being one of the key issues facing mankind at the moment just tell me a little bit about the newton. i mean blake didn't know about newton's interest in alchemy and how that shows will help blake love the environment destroy the importance of it lived in the city throughout his life apart from a short period in sussex and then 18 hundreds as a lot of nature imagery running through his his work leaves and tendrils and

growing forms and new to this extraordinary very memorable image of the 17th century scientist shown as this new figure in this in a cave underwater that seems to be really an allegory about how reason and geometry and science might involve risks involving turning our back on nature if you look at the forms that he's sitting on and you really need to see the print in the. glass to get the sense of this incredibly complex organic forms that we don't know how he created this using the using his print media you can see that an idea of science and nature being opposed in in quite and the risks of opposing science and nature being exposed to really thank you martin maroney speaking to me there the tate britain i'm joined now by peter lynn about the author of red brown blue bought burning the title taken from william blake about the struggle of 2 and the privatization revolutionaries peter welcome to going underground so we have a labor leader here talking about nationalisation we have an exhibition on william blake of the tate gallery just around the corner from this studio tell me about the

title of the book read drowned global hot burning yes it read round blow by burning us from a poem by william blake a prophetic poem his response to the 1st successful slave revolt in 181791 and read round globe hibernian her 1st of the enclosure of senses and this was at a time of the enclosure of land and the enclosure of the hand but for blake it also was a mental kind of closure and a spiritual kind he was afraid that the red brown glow which was represented both his heart and the world around him was destined for obliteration and a ray sure terrible few but one whose prophetic hour i think helped me understand the time that we live in. i want to get to haiti in a bit of course a country now known for poverty or talking about it in the book is one of the

richest countries in the world these 2 figures catherine and edward despond there's actually a t.v. series on the state mandated b.b.c. about them why do you find them such emblematic figures when it comes to understanding the world today well they both were from different european and british colony. yes edward s. barred from the oldest colony of britain ireland. catherine or kate from one of the richest colonies of europe haiti or sandow mang as it was known at the time she was a woman of color so this was a mixed race couple at a time when this doctrine of white supremacy accompanied imperialism and and and capitalism so to tell a figure the story of these 2 figures. who according to orthodox supremacy s. opinion responsibly kept apart they were comrades in struggle for democracy and

also for the commons believe in that privatization of land or privatization of of the hand in factories and above all in plantations was detrimental oppressive and miserable i'm actually surrounded here in the studio with images of the jacobin french revolution but you say that not only $1789.00 but $1802.00 is a crucial year the beginning of the anthropocene you claim the defeat of the irish republic victory in haiti and jefferson terminating native america tell me about 18 o 2 and why you see it is so important. counter-revolution against the hopes of common people for seen property land and life in common in community 1802 also as a time of napoleon's corbet with the pope. so it's

a time of sympathy or counter revolution in the name of king and property against the hopes of a equality and fraternity that had been the international already know the world to slogans after the french revolution and indeed liberty or death was the slogan of the ations slaves. s. who it inspired and will continue to inspire slave revolts for freedom throughout the americas in the coming century it is of course had in venezuela today and in cuba back to despise i mean how does he go from being best friends with nelson to end up being executed in london yes the nation's hero and the nation's villain had joined together in a imperialist plot of $70.00 to $80.00 to divide north from south america by going up the san juan river which is now in nicaragua separating it from costa rica

desperate and became a minor figure in the british empire but he was not the white supremacist and so when he did invade it ups the city lots in belize where he was superintendent he did so equally and all through this you suggest i mean at the moment it was bernie sanders in the united states army corps when as i say here in britain talking about a change in society in this book you say that the concept of the underground is so important i have to say this shows cool going on the ground you say it's religious geological political and it's key to regaining the idea of common ownership. yes i do. first geologically speaking what lies underneath the ground was removed and became the basis of energy for the steam engine at the heart of mechanisation and of course that energy produces as

a side effect c o 2 carbon dioxide which then goes into the stratosphere and thus is the beginning of planetary warming so that's one meaning of the underground another meaning of course comes from the religion at that time which was christianity where it was thought that jesus even went to hell underground in order in order to comfort those who had been but deviled on this earth finally the underground was that of union organizers political reformers and democrats who had been forced to a clandestine surreptitious life by. acts the combination acts against trade unions of 7098 this so there is a 3rd meaning of the underground but if i think now. or perhaps with blake in

a poetic voice we need to remove it from the land of metaphor and bring it back into our future so here in the states we are so deeply grateful to gratifying bird for instance who is calling us to think planetary warming not crisis is a crisis also of austerity because this warming comes directly from the capitalist mechanisation for world people and i'll stop you them all from peta plus u.k. labor party adviser professor guy standing up to this break. welcome back i'm still here with peter of course we have an established church still here

and in britain you seem to imply that capitalism changed the woods of the lord's prayer you tell us a little bit about that ben franklin i think was shocked by 798 guy is 1768 general strike on the river thames which was accompanied by roma famine at the time as well we have sued riots and he thought that the prayer to give us this day our daily bread expressed a kind of entitle meant that that contradicted the free market idiology of that you had to pay to live. and so he changed the lord's prayer but i think the established church in 1000 or 2. i'm not sure they accepted this. lake of course also add a version of the lord's prayer which more directly refers to all things and

comments in a way that failed but the but the full spectrum attempts at trying to demonize the colemans you do say that in common parlance when people say that's a bit common and how that became pejorative an insult you trace that to spoons and cup 3. well yes it was no longer ate out of a common dish you're expected to carry your own spoon. and spruance and these refinements were new in a way of degrading and spartan prison was to deny him these simple implements of consumption this movement of enclosure is connected with the degradation of the body and the enclosure also not just of land and of and of the streets and punishment but of the body itself and today we can find echoes of it even in sport you talk about the game of rackets you know. you know it human beings are

a cooperative species where kripke areas feces so even in the depravity and degradation of prison. prisoners row associates and and will find ways of sharing will find ways of self-government and discard was there he had been and believes he had been i'm i'm going to mayan people and learn new games which are described in the pope to fool the ancient text of the mayan people and i think he brought this to to the prisoners and so the game of racquets which later of course becomes an upper class sport in britain or has this beginning within what we can say is the prison criminal population of england as lovely as a great importation from central america from indigenous peoples but this is just one indication of the enclosure of land so that even sport and life and and all

activity becomes enclosed with the loss of the commons i'm good at that leovy evans talking about something called the irish backstop and bricks if you trace social progress in this country where i'm speaking if you have room. from those who have experienced english oppression and island tell me about the almost singular importance of britain's 800 year old call in the oh i'm glad you put it that way almost singular it's the 1st the 1st colony of course of the many colonies afterwards and the experience of the of the english ruling class in ireland becomes the basis of conquest elsewhere as derry becomes londonderry the same people establish jamestown virginia. so a mass in the 17th century except at the time of discard ireland becomes.

becomes a place an experimental graveyard you could say at periodic famines an english agriculture and food policy is 1st dealt with in ireland so our man desk part was of this minor gentry this anglo irish ruling class but he revolted against it there so many primary sources you show in the book telling us william wilberforce isn't the great man we're told about in the textbooks you talk about how britain and france come together to destroy a haiti what is the relevance then of the book particularly about property ownership in the news here today we have the future labor government might want to stop landlords from being able to permanent the own property and give rights to tenants what is the relevance of the book today of the earth as

a common treasury for all it is not so much more of a few this is an old if you know lessons for today from spars here is that we can make the world a new this is what thomas paine and thomas spence taught us we are not we don't have to be ruled by a few and we are capable of self-government and i think these are the lessons for our times now even though this pod was executed in london because you say clearly napoleon the british prime minister than henry addington they came together to destroy the light of revolution in haiti we see today in fact your book begins with the zapatistas opposing the w t o the hope up the hope is is all around us this neoliberal onslaught was is. is in response to the zapatistas to the movement of women and

throughout the planet it's in response against bob. feminization of poverty is a movement against. against the hopes and liberation and demands for a wife not just to vote but to live and to live well to live happily with a roof with clean water with good food we have a place to play in a way there are modest plants from africa to indonesia from australia to to the great lakes of north america and then lose it has been destroyed by the false idiology of privatization is a little thank you well the arguable western european leader of the fight against privatization and for the commons is jeremy corbyn joining me now is an advisor to his u.k. labor party the author of the new book plunder of the commons professor guy standing guy thanks for coming back on so how can historic concepts i know your new book

talks about the 1217 charter of the force how can that translate into actual policy right now ahead of an imminent general election well of the charter of the forest that you just mentioned which was sealed in the member the 5th 1217 was a foundation stone for the british constitution and the constitution of other democracies and basically what it did was it said that everybody had a right to subsistence everybody had a right to home a right to work and the right to live in the commons and the commons was meant then as access to common resources which belong to all of us social amenities and common in the practice of sharing in activities sharing with wealth and sharing in life and it established a theme that runs all the way through our history which is that the commons is needed to give society you can't have a good society unless you have

a rich. commines yet even when jerry corwin makes even the models proposals to national israel water mail in electricity there's an outcry from the society that you call it saying this is extreme it's not traditional well of course the idea of the commons was that it referred to natural resources land water air sea beds all the natural resources the minerals under the ground but it also referred to social abilities and social services that were created as a commons if you take water for example water is always been part of our commons water is owned by all of us and by nobody and yet margaret thatcher in 1989 privatized our water system and created 9 regional private

monopolies that had control of our water thames water for example which was privatized part of that system have been convicted of pouring 1600000000 tonnes of untreated sewage into our water system and other water companies have also been there record levels of complaints none of the rivers are now safe for drinking or swimming if that is a legitimate process i'm a duck again plunder of the commons you you also explain how the london of blake and i know it can be applied to cities all around the world but the london of william blake who we heard about earlier in the show privatisation of kings cross railway station to headquarters battersea power station is it too late when you advise the shadow chancellor is it too late to untangle little now i think we need a reversal of the privatisation of our cities and towns boris johnson when he was campaigning to become mayor of london said it terrible that the corporatization of

london has gone too far. be reversed and then when he became mayor he charged off to the far east all expenses paid and look good malaysian property companies chinese indonesian and promised them buy up parts of london so we now have i'm a lazy a square we have a singapore on thames and we've privatized large parts of our squares of roads and so on and it's not just in london it's in large parts of the country we call them pops privately owned public spaces this is an aspect of the loss of our social commons and it goes on all the way through our social i mean it is we've had the privatisation of our national health service by stealth by the fact that increasingly they've contracted out to private. corporations

large and large chunks of the n.h.s. and increasingly those companies that are taking huge profits from our n.h.s. are american they are us corporations united health and i document that in the book we began with william blake of the tape gallery just explain when it comes to culture your proposal for a media commons beginning with the b.b.c. but you talk about the privatisation of culture itself i think what we've seen particularly in the austerity era since 2010 with the liberal democrats and the conservatives is they starved our cultural institutions of funding they basically cut funding more for our cultural institutions than anything else partly it was easy to do so because they're not statutory obligations for local authorities as a consequence we've had libraries closing hundreds of libraries closing we have

museums restricting hours of opening. a lot of sale of works of art and a new rhodesian of the cultural institutions to such an extent that they've shifted to the american model now the american model is you rely on private donations and philanthropists to fund your your exhibitions and everything like i like the tate gallery now what that means is that funders. can determine what is shown and what is not shown is the same with the mass media we've seen an erosion of the mass media as a commons where you have a diversity of opinion you have huge numbers of local newspapers local channels where increasingly with the privatisation and the concentration of ownership you get rupert murdoch owning all the tabloids so many of them you have an axe

k.g.b. . spy running the evening standard owning the evenings standard and you have known domes owning the daily mail so you have a situation where we'd be lost the commons as our information system and it's been accelerated of course by big tech by the amazons the face books and you tube increasingly we're seeing a standardized product which is aligned to a particular ideology which is predominantly us oriented as a kind of strength thank you that's it for this special show we'll be back on saturday until then give it a try social if you see it i'm. very

strict to the u.s.s.r. it takes its work you can even you chose. not to far from here put us out of school 3 kenyan greedy it's real fun. and condensed milk we're trying not to use sugar we don't use synthetic coloring preservatives.

president trump meets with his ukrainian counterpart in new york the fallout from a phone call a got back in july groves. a transcript of that conversation has now been released that shows trump. to investigate the business dealings of rival presidential candidate joe biden and his son. in the u.k. headlines the british prime minister tells him peace through are the kickout his government's all let him get on with. all make his way back in the commons after the supreme court ruled his parliamentary suspension was.